Eventually, he just couldn't take it anymore. The rejection, the depression, the mounting bills, it became too much to deal with all on his own, Chad Albright said. "I had to escape this debtors' prison," he said — it felt like there was no other choice. "That's what America became to me, a prison. So I left." Albright bought a one-way ticket to China and boarded an airplane, uncertain if he would ever return to the country he once considered home.It was 2011, and Albright was 30 years old, starting over in a country more than 7,000 miles away from his life in Pennsylvania — away from his family, his friends, and far away from the $30,000 he owed in student loans.

Borrowing money for college seemed like a sound financial decision at the time. Albright thought his degree would reliably lead the way to a well-paying career. With tuition comes high debt. And when delivering pizzas was the only job he could find two years post-graduation — with the country's outstanding student debt rising above $1 trillion, and one million people defaulting on student loans every year — it didn't seem like it was worth it after all. "I was expected to make a $400 loan payment every month, but I had no money, no sustainable income," Albright said during a Skype interview. "College ruined my life."

In high school, he read books about the American dream, classics like "The Great Gatsby" and "The Grapes of Wrath." If he worked hard, it would pay off — that's what he was always told. v But, Albright said, he now knows those were just stories. "There was no future for me in the United States," Albright said. "And the American dream? Yeah, it doesn't exist." And few places have higher student debt than Pennsylvania. Average debt per student in the commonwealth is $36,193, the highest in the country, compared to the national average of $28,288. To get educated, most students go into debt.

How did he get here?

Growing up, it was drilled into Albright's head that college would lead to success. His father worked for the railroad, and his mother was a beautician. They never attended college but believed if their son went he would have ample opportunities at his fingertips. Albright started delivering pizzas right after high school to save money for his college tuition and continued to work full time even after starting classes. He was 25 years old when he finally thought he earned enough money to enroll at Millersville University. It wasn't easy being the oldest student in his classes, Albright said. His classmates ostracized him and it was difficult balancing his course load and a full-time job.

"I wanted that diploma, and I was willing to work for it," Albright said. "Everyone always told me it would be worth it." So as costs began to add up — tuition, textbooks, rent — Albright felt justified in his decision to take out student loans. But to his dismay, finding a job after graduation wouldn't be so easy. His degree in public relations wasn't opening up as many doors as he anticipated.

Albright graduated in December 2007— right at the start of the economic crisis that would later become known as the Great Recession, the longest period of economic decline since the Great Depression of the 1930s. Millions of people lost their life savings, their jobs and their homes. Not exactly an ideal time to be entering the job market, Albright said. Interview after interview, Albright heard the same thing: "Sorry, there's someone who's been doing this for 10 years and just lost their job. I have to go with someone who has 10 years' experience."

"But the last thing they would say to me," Albright recalls, "'Don't worry, your day will come.'" Back to the pizza shop and back to living with his parents in Lancaster, Albright fell into a deep depression. He was behind on his student loans and still couldn't find a job. Plus, he was worried that once he did find a job, the government would garnish his wages. "Two years of nonstop interviews and nothing," Albright said. "I was so done."

What a dumb #$&&% , in a couple of years he will be begging us to take him back. In the 1930s many Americans moved to what they thought was the utopia of the Soviet Union and they learned the hard way it was not ended up in a gulag.

30K in student debt? As in the cost of a median priced new car and he had to flee because he couldn't afford a $400 a month debt?
Oh the horror. Degree in Public Relations. Maybe that's the first problem right there, a largely worthless degree. Probably another idiot who though a sheepskin ANY SHEEPSKIN was a ticket to a decent job.

Said he was living with his parents. So that means, no utilities and no rent, probably largely living there for free.
Also said he was working full time to.
So let's see...

$8.00 an hour times 80 times 26 - say 10 percent for taxes.... That's about 15K a year, and again LIVING AT HOME SO NO RENT.

And of that he could couldn't shell out about %30 to pay for his loans?

My older daughter(soon to be 21) is currently going to school for international business. At the moment she is of coarse at home for the summer break and working part time. But, yet, somehow she is able to make her car payment of about $300.00 pay pretty much her own expenses and kick a little in for groceries and such. As she is FLUENT in Japanese(hell she lived there from Jan of 18 to Jan of this year and worked at a store in one of the malls and the only people none the wiser where her co workers) she will be able to find a decent job easily. Plus, she has somehow been able to make payments on her loans.

My younger daughter(age 18) is of to U W Milwaukee in the fall to be a Registered Nurse/get her bachelors. Yes SHE WILL BE ONE OF THESE YOUNGINS' graduating with a huge student debt(to the tune of 100K). BUT, as a RN WITH EXPERIENCES(as she already has her CNA and is currently working at a hospital as a CNA) she will easily be able to find a job starting around 50-55K a year.
Yeah, it's a house payment BUT because hospital are so damn short of RN's I have told her many times find one that will pay your debt of, at most you will just need to take small pay cut and stay there for a few years. It will be well worth it.

Also, never mind that he probably totally f'd his parents over as he most likely had co signers for his loans.
Never mind them right? It's all about the poow wittle cwy baby who couldn't find a job because he got a useless degree and wouldn't settle for anything less than X amount an hour or year. I also have a feeling he isn't the most pleasant person to be around, and yet he is trying to be a Public Relations person? Hello.... and, never mind all the other people he just f'd over because fools like him when they skip the country only make it harder for other young people who aren't dumb asses get loans.

Let's see could have joined the Military(then again that probably would have been more a curse to those around him).
Could have taken a second job(not like he was getting O.T.)
I have a feeling there is much much more to this then this little cry me a river piece is letting on.

Over $30,000? Something is fishy here. Letís say the annual interest rate is 6% (fairly low because student loan, maybe could be lower), compounding monthly, so 0.5% a month. Thatís $150 interest on $30k, per month. Like the article said, there are services that would refinance and the payment might be $200-250 a month. If youíre living at parents home, you can pay that off. Something else is behind this - or this guy is just stupid.

My thought is that heís heard about Americans going to teach English in China and making big bucks and grabbing skinny Asian pussy that he hopes will be for free. Or for low price. Iíd much rather believe that.... and thus heís looking to spend his savings on exotic (to him) women. He looks rather unattractive, so I can understand thatís his only option.

They need to put the degree earned in the first paragraph instead of burying it in the last half of the article. Public relations. For some reason the people in these stories never have degrees in the medical, engineering, or hard sciences fields. A $30,000 debt right out of college isn't a great idea, but it's not insurmountable unless you can't get a job because you "followed your passion" instead of making sure your degree would put you in a field where (1) jobs are available and (2) pay well enough you can take care of the loans (and work hard enough so you don't end up with mediocre grades and dismal reference letters).

As was said in the other thread, couldn't he take a few more worthless idiots with him? We get enough worthless people from other countries (and, no little libs, I did not say ALL people from other countries are worthless), let some other country take some of ours.

Eventually, he just couldn't take it anymore. The rejection, the depression, the mounting bills, it became too much to deal with all on his own, Chad Albright said. "I had to escape this debtors' prison," he said — it felt like there was no other choice. "That's what America became to me, a prison. So I left." Albright bought a one-way ticket to China and boarded an airplane, uncertain if he would ever return to the country he once considered home.It was 2011, and Albright was 30 years old, starting over in a country more than 7,000 miles away from his life in Pennsylvania — away from his family, his friends, and far away from the $30,000 he owed in student loans.

Borrowing money for college seemed like a sound financial decision at the time. Albright thought his degree would reliably lead the way to a well-paying career. [size="2"]With tuition comes high debt. And when delivering pizzas was the only job he could find two years post-graduation — with the country's outstanding student debt rising above $1 trillion, and one million people defaulting on student loans every year — it didn't seem like it was worth it after all...

Any 30YO who - even WITHOUT a college degree - can't get a better job than delivering pizza is either a flat-out moron OR has absolutely ZERO work ethic.

Wow, this POS left the country over 30K? That isn't even that much compared to other fields. Yeah you picked a sh*tty major so find another career, and pay it off loser! Now the American tax payer has to bail your ass out while you flee the country?

This story disgusts me on so many levels. Yeah my kid is taking out loans to become an engineer. I'm helping him out as much as I can but it's still going to be north of 40K of student loans. I simply told him when he graduates that student loans need to be in the no. 1 position to pay off. Don't go take out a huge car loan, or run up credit card debt. I told him to live off 70-80% of his salary and use the remaining to put into savings 401k and pay off student loans. If he can do more than that great but that should be his starting point.

This is a side tangent on what is a bigger problem. And the problem is 100% with the universities. We need to totally revamp the university system, to have more junior colleges that are much cheaper be 100% transferable credit to larger universities to get core requirements out of the way. Reduce credit hour requirements for most majors to 120 credits. Even in fields like Engineering, Pre-med, Pre-law, there's still so much BS classes you have to take, simply to justify department budgets that shouldn't exist. Sorry folks, if you want a "Dept of <insert woke minority group here>" then it needs to be self sustaining, especially at state universities taking public tax dollars.